Although he has reached his mid-60s and had an unprecedented career of cinematic success, Steven
Spielberg remains a kid at heart.

Plenty of evidence is found this week in two major releases from the director: the animated
The Adventures of Tintin, which opened on Wednesday in theaters, and the family-focused
War Horse, to open on Sunday.

Both share youthful genes with
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,
Jurassic Park and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

War Horse, based on a 1982 young-adult novel and a recent stage adaptation, starts as an
elaborate boy-and-his-horse yarn, which evolves into a survival epic when World War I breaks
out.

At the core is the deep affection of rural British lad Albert (Jeremy Irvine) for a colt he
watches being born in a neighbor’s pasture.

The foal and his mummy are soon parted when Albert’s oft-drinking father spends too much to buy
the horse in an auction, just to thwart his landlord.

The purchase threatens the family finances but gives Albert the chance to train the sleek steed
he names Joey.

Albert turns Joey into a plow horse, but, when the war arrives, Joey is sold to a British
officer, who rides off to meet the Germans. When the outdated British cavalry is mowed down by the
enemy’s machine guns, Joey falls into German hands. He later makes a stop on a French farm, then is
back behind German lines, hauling heavy artillery up hillsides.

Despite the carnage of the Western front (staged less graphically than it was in Spielberg’s
Saving Private Ryan),
War Horse unfolds as an uplifting tale of well-meaning people stepping into and out of
Joey’s life until he can be reunited with Albert — a fate as elemental to such a story as mud in
the trenches.

Spielberg guides his sprawling film with the smooth control of a

master, executing bravura sequences along the way: Albert’s grim ordeal plowing a rocky patch of
ground; the cavalry charge out of a wheat field; and, most of all, Joey’s panicked escape through a
maze of trenches into a horrifying tangle of barbed wire.

Still,
War Horse can’t overcome the literal nature of film. Onstage, Joey and other steeds are
represented by large, complex puppets that challenge the viewer’s imagination and suggest
metaphoric layers. On-screen, the horse is a passive player, never more interesting than the
characters around him.

The cast has few familiar faces — none with a mainstream pedigree.

Emily Watson is solid as Albert’s long-suffering mother, and Irvine lends an earthy sincerity to
Albert. Joey, of course, is played by one or more horses that, like all other animals before them,
had no idea they were making a movie.

Even more than the horse, the real star is the director — who combines his flair for cinematic
grandeur and his sensitivity to heartfelt emotions into

a noble melodrama that will enthrall people convinced that all animals function with human
motivations.